Felan Reads the Webcomics 4: Octopus Pie

Some Sundays, Felan is too busy to write a full profile, so he posts his favourite webcomics instead.

As I mentioned in last week’s round-up of TCAF finds, Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran is one of my favourite webcomics. On paper, it sounds like any number of other comics – “normal,” responsible main character Eve and wacky stoner friend Hanna are Brooklyn twenty-somethings dealing with job troubles and relationships and having adventures with an ever-expanding supporting cast – but in execution there’s a lot more to it. Not unlike Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work on Scott Pilgrim, Gran’s visual characterization masterfully balances honest realism with cartoony expressionism, and likewise while some storylines remain grounded in the everyday, others cross over into outlandishness and outright fantasy. There’s a clever sophistication to Octopus Pie that is practically non-existant in webcomics, but at the same time Gran never shies away from a great gag.

You can read Octopus Pie at http://www.octopuspie.com/, or in one of the two collected print editions available for order on the website, There Are No Stars In Brooklyn and the forthcoming Listen At Home With Octopus Pie (due out this month).